Child Welfare Workers Research Articles

Dynamics of Social Work Approach in Childcare; An Analysis of Integration of Islamic Kafala Theory and Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and Application Thereof in Childcare in Saudi Arabia

This paper explores the dynamic integration of Islamic Kafala theory and attachment theory within the context of childcare and welfare in Saudi Arabia. Despite the growing recognition of diverse cultural and theoretical frameworks in social work practice, there is very limited research on how specific theories are integrated and applied in childcare, particularly within Islamic contexts. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the application of these theories in enhancing child welfare and social work practices in Saudi Arabia. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the research draws on qualitative data from surveys of child welfare professionals and families engaged in the Kafala system, supplemented by case study analyses in various Muslim countries. The findings reveal that the integration of Islamic Kafala theory and attachment theory offers a culturally sensitive and effective framework for improving childcare practices, promoting the emotional and psychological well-being of children in care. The study highlights practical implications for social workers, suggesting strategies for the successful incorporation of these integrated theories into child welfare practices in Saudi Arabia. It also identifies challenges and limitations within the current system, offering recommendations for policymakers to enhance child welfare services. This research contributes to the theoretical and practical knowledge of childcare and welfare, advocating for a more nuanced and culturally informed approach to social work in Saudi Arabia.

Wie weiter mit der Aufarbeitung? Bericht über die Pressekonferenz zum Abschlussbericht „Helmut Kentlers Wirken in der Berliner Kinder- und Jugendhilfe“ am 23. Februar 2024 in Berlin

“Child endangerment under public responsibility” was how the Hildesheim research team summarized its 2020 review report on “Helmut Kentler’s work in Berlin’s child and youth welfare system”. On February 23, 2024, the team presented the final report of its subsequent research project at a press conference at the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family. The results of the research project extend far beyond Helmut Kentler’s work in child and youth welfare in Berlin and can be summarized succinctly as “Child welfare endangerment in public and professional as well as scientific responsibility”.

Foster caregivers in crisis: a comparison study of the perceptions of foster caregivers and child welfare workers

ABSTRACT This qualitative study explored the perceptions of child welfare workers and foster caregivers regarding stress and crises in foster homes. Interviews of foster caregivers (n = 14) and child welfare staff (n = 11) compare the two perspectives to determine similarities and differences. Findings explored stress and various factors contributing to crises. The ability to compare data between groups allowed important distinctions to emerge. Implications for practice include the need for child welfare systems to support professionals with clinical training and expertise to consult with families or child welfare workers in real time and identify ways to strengthen communication between caseworkers and foster caregivers.

Everyone benefits when there is another MSW in child welfare: exploring ways to support Title IV-E MSW student-employees

ABSTRACT The Title IV-E program is crucial for the public child welfare (PCW) system as it supports the training and retention of skilled workers. However, there is a lack of information about how PCW agencies support employees in MSW Title IV-E programs. This study examined how six counties in Northern California support their MSW Title IV-E student-employees. The findings uncovered themes related to strong county social work internship programs, additional support for student-employees, and challenges in program implementation. Sharing information about PCW agency internship programs can benefit agencies by improving access to higher education and attracting skilled child welfare workers.

Social Network Enhancement: Bridging and Bonding the Social Networks of Child Welfare Involved Youth

ABSTRACTA supportive social network is crucial for the well‐being of child welfare involved youth; however, their social networks are often small and/or unable to provide necessary support. Child welfare workers can play an important role in strengthening and expanding the social networks of youth. In this Norwegian study, 15 child welfare workers' experiences with social network enhancement were examined using semi‐structured interviews. Data analysis applied a social capital lens to identify whether and how this framework could enhance our understanding of this issue. Study findings highlight three main objectives, implemented to (a) strengthening the youth's existing network, (b) supporting the youth to take part in (new) social arenas and (c) cultivating the youth's social skills and relationship building. Findings suggest that this approach can contribute to the development of bonding and bridging social capital. Within all objectives and associated strategies, trusting relationships between youth and child welfare workers were considered a prerequisite for success. Several barriers and impeding factors were also identified, such as the limited size of the social networks or lack of social skills. These barriers show how social network enhancement can be complicated, in actual practice.

Colorblindness and race dismissiveness: Discursive racism and the limits of multicultural competence

AbstractThis qualitative study integrates critical race theory to examine the practice of multicultural competence and the mechanism of discursive racism in the context of child welfare workers. We troubled the dominant paradigm of multicultural competence taken up by practitioners, and deployed discourse analysis on racial dialogue in a real‐life setting to highlight how the multicultural competence approach risks becoming a form of colorblind racism that diminish the importance of structure racial power which we call race dismissiveness. In our findings we identified four distinct patterns of race dismissiveness that the practitioners adopted to deflect racial dialogue: race identity fetishism, racial peripheralization, racial erasure, and racial externalization. We argue that the separation between semantic expressions of multicultural beliefs and enacted racial practices needs to be conceptualized as a part of the discursive enactment of colorblind racism that functions to keep structural racism intact through everyday practice.

The Impact of Emotional Dissonance on Turnover Intent in Child Welfare Social Work: Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

ABSTRACTHigh employee turnover represents a substantial problem in child welfare work. To prevent turnover, knowledge about risk factors, mechanisms, and conditional factors that can explain turnover and turnover intent is highly important. This study investigated a moderated mediation model with (1) emotional dissonance as a predictor of subsequent turnover intent, (2) job dissatisfaction and burnout as potential mediators, and (3) being overly nurturing as a potential moderating variable. The associations were examined using data from a two‐wave prospective questionnaire survey of 424 child welfare workers in Norway. Emotional dissonance was positively related to burnout and job dissatisfaction (cross‐sectionally) and had a significant indirect association with increased turnover intent 6 months later (prospectively) through burnout, but not job dissatisfaction. An antagonistic interaction effect of being overly nurturing was found on the association between emotional dissonance and burnout, and the indirect association with turnover intent. Specifically, having low scores on the overly nurturing trait had a protective effect on burnout and turnover intent in cases of low to moderate exposure to emotional dissonance. In cases of high emotional dissonance, all employees reported the outcomes as equally negative irrespective of their tendency to be overly nurturing. The findings highlight the importance of organizational efforts that can help child welfare workers deal with emotional demands.

Interprofessional collaborations in child welfare: providers’ experiences

ABSTRACT This study investigated the experiences of providers collaborating with child welfare workers using the Quality of Collaboration with Child Welfare (Q-CCW) survey. The findings reveal a significant misalignment between the perceived importance of collaboration and providers’ actual satisfaction levels. Despite high valuations of collaboration, participants from a range of professions expressed dissatisfaction with the responsivity and professionalism of workers. They were slightly more satisfied with relational elements of the collaborations. Participants further indicated that their experiences led to poorer outcomes and decreased willingness to continue working on child welfare cases. Providers’ responses underscores the need for improvements in collaborative practices.

Inclusive Leadership to Address Discrimination and Improve Retention in Child Welfare: Examining Multiple Pathways

Inclusive leadership has been discussed as an effective approach to workforce retention and workplace racial discrimination by satisfying the demand for belongingness and uniqueness. However, scant research has investigated the relationship between inclusive leadership and retention in child welfare. Using survey data collected from child welfare workers (n = 2469) across three public child welfare agencies, the current study examined the direct impact of inclusive leadership on child welfare workers’ intent to stay at their agency, as well as its indirect impact on intent to stay by influencing workplace racial discrimination. This study also explored the moderation effect of inclusive climate on the direct and indirect impacts of inclusive leadership using the PROCESS Program for SPSS. The research findings revealed that the direct and indirect impacts of inclusive leadership on intent to stay were significant. The findings also suggest that inclusive climate strengthened the positive association between inclusive leadership and intent to stay. Overall, this study demonstrated the potential of inclusive leadership to enhance racial equity and workforce retention in public child welfare systems. Future research needs to explore how specific behaviors of inclusive leaders improve workforce retention and explore other factors that could explain the impact of inclusive leadership.

Transformational Leadership, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Burnout of Child Welfare Workers: Multilevel Moderation Effects.

This study examines the moderating effects of distant leader's practice of transformational leadership on the relationship between secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout among child welfare workers. Caseworkers and supervisors in a Midwest U.S. state (N = 210) rated their regional director's use of transformational leadership skills using a survey. Given the nature of the clustered data, multilevel modeling was employed to examine the main effects of transformational leadership on worker burnout and its cross-level interaction effect on the association between worker STS and burnout. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that worker burnout was positively associated with STS and negatively associated with organizational-level transformational leadership. The cross-level interaction between transformational leadership and STS was significant. Specifically, the positive association between workers' STS and burnout decreased as transformational leadership increased. These findings suggest that organizational approaches such as transformational leadership can influence workforce results. Further research will guide child welfare policymakers to develop more sophisticated training programs in leadership skills and strategies.

Workplace support, job autonomy, and turnover intention among child welfare workers in China: The mediating role of job satisfaction

This study examined the mediating role of job satisfaction in the associations among workplace support, job autonomy, and turnover intention among child welfare workers in China. The differential effects of several sources of workplace support (coworkers, supervisors, and organization leaders) on worker turnover intention were also examined. Using data drawn from the Chinese Social Work Longitudinal survey 2019, a series of path analyses were conducted. The results indicated that job satisfaction partially mediated the effects of workplace support and job autonomy on turnover intention. When the effects of workplace support from different sources were examined, the mediating effect of job satisfaction was significant only for the association between support from organization leaders and turnover intention. Greater workplace support from organization leaders and supervisors directly predicted lower turnover intention, while workplace support from coworkers was not significantly associated with turnover intention. The findings suggest that policies and programs that promote workplace support from organization leaders and supervisors and enhance job autonomy and satisfaction may be critical to address high turnover rates among child welfare workers.

Exploring child welfare worker wellbeing, organizational social context, and staff recommendations for change: a mixed method case study

ABSTRACT Unpacking evidence-based practice in social work education: a scoping review Child welfare workers are the link between families and the system and are tasked with assessing and mitigating child maltreatment. While US-based research suggests that organizations are prime for child welfare workers to experience poor overall wellbeing, there is a dearth of research in Canada. This mixed method case study explored workers’ levels of burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion satisfaction, and the organizational social context. Qualitative recommendations to promote wellbeing include, Help us help families, Listen to me and appreciate me, Give us time to breathe, Give me my independence, We want to connect, and We are fighting the system.

Kompletterande, kompenserande och komplicerande

Complementing, compensating and complicating – informal organisation in Swedish child fare work The child welfare work within the Swedish personal social services (PSS) is clearly marked by formalisation and specialisation. It is guided by a diversity of national and local guidelines, while different units assume responsibility for specific tasks (e.g., intake, investigation and decision, or care and treatment). A risk of service fragmentation has been identified as a substantial downside to these organisational settings. However, prior research has mainly focused on formal organisational structures and how work is ‘supposed to’ be carried out. Less attention is paid to informal organisation, namely how work is ‘actually performed’ on day-to-day basis, which has been identified as an important but often overlooked aspect for understanding organisational performance. Therefore, the aim was to describe and analyse the influence of informal organisation in child welfare cases. Non-participating observations and group interviews were conducted in 11 Swedish municipalities. The findings show that informal organisation can ‘grease the wheels’ in child welfare cases: firstly, by complementing formal structures and offering alternative channels for collaboration and information exchange; and secondly, by compensating for gaps in areas of responsibility within the formal organisation, such as when staff offer informal care and support, even though their work is supposed to specifically focus on investigation and decision making, or individual social workers assume an informal case management role. Nevertheless, informal organisation was also found to complicate work, as unregulated and informal areas of work also allow the conflicting interests and work logics among different units and their staff to unfold. The findings are finally discussed in relation to the future organisation of social services.

Providers' experiences collaborating with child welfare workers: The good, the bad, and the impacts

BackgroundSuccessful interprofessional collaborations have been identified as a potential solution to mitigate problems associated with negative outcomes for clients involved with the child welfare system. The barriers to collaborative relationships need to be better understood and effectively addressed. ObjectiveTo understand the characteristics, barriers, and facilitators of collaborations between different types of providers and child welfare workers, as well as their impacts. Participants and settingMental health professionals, foster and kinship parents, legal professionals, and other providers responded to an online survey distributed in a Northeastern State of the United States of America. MethodParticipants (n = 208) completed the Quality of Collaboration with Child Welfare survey. Qualitative responses were analyzed by three coders using three levels of axial coding with constant comparison. ResultsParticipants identified different aspects of communication, relationships, and follow-through as key elements of successful collaborations, as well as the items most likely to interfere with their formation. Providers differed somewhat in how concerned they were with various aspects of collaborations in accordance with their professional roles. Barriers to successful collaborations included both individual and systemic factors which often resulted in negative outcomes. Overall, more negative experiences were offered than positive ones. ConclusionsStrategies are needed to improve communication, promote positive relationships, and address systemic barriers to enhance collaboration and, in turn, improve outcomes for child welfare-involved clients.

How Do Child Welfare Workers Understand and Practice Child Participation?

ABSTRACTChild participation is strongly emphasized as a value and a right in the Norwegian child welfare (CW) system. Based on focus group interviews with 24 CW employees, we explore how CW workers understand and practice child participation in various work phases: assessment; supportive measures in the home; out‐of‐home placements. Two main forms of participation were identified: indirect participation, where the child is observed or communicates with other professionals, and direct participation, where the child speaks to a CW worker. The topics of conversations with children are divided into two categories: general topics regarding the child's everyday life and CW‐related topics, associated with the case and the child's situation. CW workers' understandings of children's participation provide the basis for the form and content of participation offered and lead to the child being assigned various positions. This ranges from direct participation where the child is positioned as the primary participant in direct interaction about their situation to indirect participation where the child is represented or observed by adults. We argue for a more nuanced understanding of what child participation implies and increased awareness of how different forms and contexts affect opportunities for children's participation.

Palvelutarpeiden arvioinnin yhdenmukaisuus perhesosiaalityön ja lastensuojelun rajapinnoilla

Consistency and variability in child welfare assessments at the juncture of family services and child welfare The study examines assessments of children’s and families’ referrals to public social services and whether they differ between child welfare workers across the country. The focus is on how child welfare workers assess the referral as being an issue either for family or child welfare services and whether the assessments differ in any significant way. The data is drawn from 28 group interviews with 120 professionals based on a vignette, the nature of data being that of professional imagination. The findings highlight a shared approach to the vignette as child welfare workers orientate towards finding more information and testing it and meeting each family member in similar ways. They withdraw from any fixed interpretation of the case without any interaction with family members. It is argued that when prioritizing service-users’ equality and consistency of...

Development and Validation of the Adolescent and Children Risk of Abuse and Maltreatment Unaccompanied Scale (ACRAM-US)

Independent migration of children and adolescents is becoming a political and social issue in recent years. Literature documents that the migration process of young people without an adult referent entail serious psychological problems. Moreover, the lack of coherence in the assessment and care processes aggravates the damage suffered by minors, which requires a greater investment of institutional resources. The aim of this research is to describe the development and provide psychometric properties of Adolescent and Children Risk of Abuse and Maltreatment Unaccompanied Scale (ACRAM-US), a 9-items scale for the assessment of risks factors of child abuse and neglect in the specific population of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and adolescents. Structural validity, reliability and convergent-related validity were studied for this measure in a sample of 128 unaccompanied children and adolescents. The sample included cases of 14 different nationalities. Children’s mean age was 16.94 (SD = 1.84), and 96.9% were male and 3.1% were female. Cases were informed by child welfare workers from different protective services in the XXXX Community (XXXX). The results of Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) indicate performance better solution with 2-dimensions which was also in line with theoretical formulation (χ2 = 31.55, df = 19, p = .035, CFI = 0.991, SRMR = 0.081, RMSEA = 0.072, [90% CI: 0.019 − 0.115]). Results of convergent validity showed significant correlation with the Children Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF). Therefore, this study provides data of the first scale that assess risks factors of maltreatment for the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and adolescents.

Child Welfare Workers' Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence and Mandatory Reporting in Norway

ABSTRACTIntimate partner violence (IPV) is a major criminal, social and public health problem. As one effort to prevent IPV and intimate partner homicide, several countries have adopted legislation requiring professionals to disclose IPV to the authorities (commonly referred to as mandatory reporting). The child welfare service (CWS) is centrally positioned for detecting, reporting and preventing IPV, but there is limited empirical knowledge concerning how the service handles IPV cases or of social workers' awareness of mandatory reporting of IPV. Using qualitative interviews, we explore how CWS workers in Norway describe their discretionary space and mandatory obligations towards adults subjected to IPV. Our findings indicate an inexpedient interplay between understandings of professional mandate and individual responsibility and local routines and organisation and insufficient knowledge about IPV and mandatory reporting. We suggest that a reframing of CWS workers' understanding of their discretionary space is needed to ensure that their individual responsibility towards adults subjected to IPV is understood as part of their mandate. This reframing presupposes structural efforts, such as formal training. We propose further investigations concerning how local organisation and routines either facilitate or interfere with systematic and thorough handling of IPV in families with which the municipal CWS meets.

A balancing act: partnering with the media to provide a trauma-informed approach to U.S child welfare

ABSTRACT The United States (U.S.) media often scrutinizes and sometimes explicitly vilifies child welfare practices, particularly when the case attracts the public’s attention. In such cases, the public’s perception of child welfare skews negatively, fostering a culture of blame ascribed to the system. In turn, families are disinclined to work with child welfare workers, who make efforts to mitigate the trauma inflicted on children. This framework aims to provide a trauma-informed practice model that explores how child welfare agencies can partner with the media to improve public perception of child welfare practices and ensure the safety of children. This proposed model draws from a United Kingdom (U.K.) reform effort, which addresses the importance of dialogue between child welfare and the media to create a trauma-informed partnership for reporting. The U.S. child welfare agencies and media can benefit from a trauma-informed partnership, promoting mutual understanding and respect, advancing the profession, and increasing public knowledge of child welfare.

Mental health and quality of life among Norwegian child welfare service workers

ABSTRACT Social workers in child welfare services play an important role in preventing crises and identifying the need for and implementing relevant measures among children and families of different ages and circumstances, often with little recognition. The main aim of this study was to examine mental health and overall- and professional quality of life of 978 Norwegian child welfare (CW) service workers. The design was cross-sectional and quantitative analyses showed that several demographic and job-related factors were associated with poorer mental health and quality of life. Approximately half of the respondents showed levels of psychological distress that warranted professional support and moderate or high levels of burnout and secondary stress (professional quality of life). Professional quality of life explained most of the variance in psychological distress and overall quality of life, respectively, after controlling for demographic and job-related variables. The findings of this study can lay the foundation for preventing mental health and quality of life issues among CW workers, as it indicates the focus areas for schools of social work in terms of the mental health of students and future CW workers.